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It's been almost 2 years since I backed Qbert's Kickstarter.....


Steve

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^^ yeah Jimmy told me he spent the money on hosting a street fighter 2 battle party packed with prostitutes dressed as chun li and cammy and smashed an antique sf2 cabinet with a hand axe in an act of ultimate nerd decadence..

 

Or, maybe check your email for a kickstarter message saying records are due to ship in Jan ....

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  • 4 weeks later...
  • 4 weeks later...

To be fair, most of the big pressing plants can't keep up with demand at the moment, As such, there is a long wait to have things done if you're not a major label.

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Yes but they never seemed to encounter those type of pressing problems when they were churning out all those dirtstyle battle lps a few years back though did they ? hmmm

 

A lot of places have closed down since those days. Now you have this bottleneck situation where everyone is using only a handful of plants to get everything done. That may not be the reason why Thud haven't come through, but I'm just saying it is a possibility.

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Pressing plants are a bottleneck right now... but that would be 3-6 months at worst. This has been two years because they've invested Steve's money in property and they're waiting for the market to pick up before moving on their investments... unless you believe FLARE of course, in that case the money's already been blown down at the Rub'n'Tug and Steve can go whistle.

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I appreciate what youre saying there broke dude,it just seems to me that $127 grand is a shitload of money for people to shell out and then to recieve nothing after two years of waiting just seems wrong ,one of kickstarters biggest problems in general appears to be a lack of transparency tbh

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127k isnt really that much money all things considered... and Specialty vinyl is really taking a hit lately... consider the possibility that there was a 3-6 month wait and then the tests were approved and the records shipped... only to have an error of some sort... 306 month process repeats... possibly some other error... miscommunication or unforeseen problem... This kind of stuff happens constantly with kickstarter. A friend of mine worked on that apple dock that received 1.4 million in funding a while back. It was the highest kickstarter funding reached at that time. Even with the massive influx of capital it took like three or four times as long to deliver... by the time the units shipped apple had switched to lighting adapters. It was a disaster. You gotta remember that kickstarter is not a store, you are funding an idea with the possibility of a reward if the idea works out... sometimes they dont.

 

I do think Thud should be transparent and announce the factors contributing to the delay so that fans didn't have to wonder if they were getting the short end of it... cause lets be honest here... those 7" baby seals are basically like printing money when you consider the cost per 7" after the initial plate is made is basically nothing and all they have to do is ask for a different color and it sells out lol... so, we know they are not totally broke. They could explain the missing puzzle pieces...

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That's the thing tho, isn't it? Kickstarter is for amateurs and startups to get matched with money. Sometime you get burned. Sometimes it's so successful that the demand is crushing. Thing is Thud Rumble isn't amateurs and isn't a startup--it's professionals with an established company and brand putting all the risk on their consumers and that is completely fucked. They shouldn't be allowed to use Kickstarter IMO. They are not using the platform, they are taking advantage of it. There is a line between business and scam and they are walking it.

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I disagree with that and so do Kickstarter given that their rules don't prevent it, so I think it's a case of some people projecting what they think Kickstarter should be for on to it.

 

About a quarter of the people who sign up to Kickstarter for the first time in order to back a high profile project from an established company also go on to back smaller projects from startups and individuals, so is that not a good thing?

 

My objections in this case are the time it's taking to deliver on the project and the total lack of communication from Thud Rumble - a company that's not a brand new startup and should know better when it comes to doing business.

 

In terms of business, generally speaking, if you can get other people to pay for something instead of you paying for it, you should. I think what's far more important than the debate about that is delivering the goods to the backers, and it's actually the smallest projects from startups that are the worst offenders there, with about 14% of them failing to deliver.

 

Ethically I don't have a problem with it at all, simply because nobody is forced to back a Kickstarter project. It's always a choice. The argument that "if they can afford to pay for it themselves, they shouldn't do crowdfunding" has issues in itself. You don't know how much cashflow a small business like Thud Rumble has, but the assumption is that they have a lot. At the same time, if "unknown dood" steps up with a Kickstarter for a small project, people assume that it couldn't happen without crowdfunding and that it's "ethical" and "worthy", but how do you know how much money that guy has in the bank? You don't. You just assume. The other issue is, if you're going to set a line that can't be crossed, where do you set it?

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I agree that it's thuds lack of transparency being its ultimate crime, it feeds assumptions and personally speaking it's just another reason why I'm not interested in there products. Comparing my own experiences buying stuff from thud compared to dj techtools, a similar sized boutique dj store is like chalk and cheese, 1st class rapid support,, innovative well manufactured products vs delayed response support and poor quality products with eff all innovations.

 

I find it all pretty lame tbh, TR are in a hugely unique and powerful position, every scratch dj on the planet has a scratchy seal ffs, a feet not to be underestimated. Yet every passing year the credibility of TRs public message/ethos takes another knock, for me any way.

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They must have been making money hand over fist for years with those battle wax albums and like Dubba says every scratch dj on the planet probably owns a scratchy seal,then think of all the doubles they must have sold on top of that cos as everyone knows you gotta have doubles ,and I remember those albums being not exactly cheap to start with, I mean I must have at least 10 of them myself and I dont even scratch, I just liked the drumbreaks they put on them but Deeswift had everything they put out and doubles at that ,thats the sort of scale it should be viewed from I think.Ive got a couple of mates who had record shops back then and they couldnt sell those lps fast enough and at 10 to 15 pounds each it doesn't take a genius to work out the mathematics, so yeah I think diggla and dubba are both spot on with their comments on thud rumble tbh

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Nobody forced people to put money in is a horrible stance IMO. its not a charity. A product was promised for prepayment. There is nothing unreasonable about expecting to receive your product.

You don't have to have cash flow BTW. An established business has equity to borrow against. That's why it's kinda lame to put the risk not on the company (I'm not even saying Qbert should take the risk I'm saying the LLC or Corp should) and instead putting it on the consumer. In theory it shouldn't matter who had the risk as long as the product is delivered as advertised wishing the projected timeframe but two years later you can see why it does matter. I'd be willing to bet you see another TR kickstarter campaign before you see your product. Most likely because they will have hemeraged too much $ with these delays to be able to fulfill.

 

EDIT: To be clear, I have no problem with Thud Rumble. I received my reward probably 14 months ago. Quality and design is amazing. And TBH it's a little funny just because it's Steve and Thud Rumble.

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